Using Brief Measures to Identify Depression and Other Mental Disorders: A Challenge for Research and Clinical Practice

In more recent decades our understanding of depression and related conditions have been codified into formal diagnostic classification systems…This editorial seeks to remind our field that although brief measures are useful tools, when used inappropriately, they may lead to a myriad of issues.

Nickolai Titov and Gerhard Andersson

“In more recent decades our understanding of depression and related conditions have been codified into formal diagnostic classification systems. The International Classification of Diseases (World Health Organization, 2020) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) are the most widely used classification systems in the Western world and have been standardised into diagnostic tools and measures (Kessler and Üstün, 2004).” 


“This editorial seeks to remind our field that although brief measures are useful tools, when used inappropriately, they may lead to high false positive rates of cases, unnecessary treatment, and may pathologise normal human distress.”


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Article in press: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100450